The development of systems of software solutions can be particularly complex and difficult to manage. Software developers are tasked with authoring multiple solutions which often depend on common resources or use similar software functionality. However, the common resources or similar software functionality is often not developed in a coordinated manner. Accordingly, when a software developer tasked with authoring a new software solution seeks to draw upon already-authored common resources or common software functionality, the software developer may be confronted with resources that are specified in an unfamiliar manner; structured in an unfamiliar way; or which are poorly documented. This makes it difficult for a software developer to adapt pre-existing resources and code to a software authoring task, often resulting in needless aggravation, duplication of effort and inefficiency.
These problems also negatively impact the integration of multiple software solutions. Often, software solutions which are to be integrated draw upon common resources or software functionality. However, common resources or software functionality may be tailored for use with a particular one of the software solutions, and may not integrate well (or at all) with other of the software solutions to be integrated. This situation, like the previous situation associated with authoring a new software solution, often results in needless aggravation, duplication of effort and inefficiency. The needless aggravation and inefficiency is caused by the need to modify resources and common software functionality so that it can be used in a software solution for which it was not designed.
Similar problems are encountered when a change needs to be spawned throughout a system of software solutions. Due to poor documentation or software authoring practices, dependencies among software components may be poorly understood. Accordingly, when a change is made to a particular software component, it may be difficult to discover what other software components need to be modified in order to accommodate the change in the particular software component.
Accordingly, those skilled in the art desire a model-based software development paradigm and tools that impose regularity on software authoring tasks, particularly software authoring tasks involving systems of software solutions. In particular, those skilled in the art desire a model-based software development paradigm that creates software components using a pre-defined framework, wherein the pre-defined framework is comprised of well-defined artifacts that in some way record and preserve dependencies among the artifacts comprising the framework. In addition, those skilled in the art desire a software development paradigm that eliminates needless duplication of effort by drawing upon pre-existing artifacts for use in authoring new software solutions. Further, those skilled in the art desire a model-based software development paradigm and tools that greatly simplify change management and implementation.